Defenders of
liberty are often challenged to supply exhaustive descriptions of what would
happen if some aspect of our increasingly government-dictated lives were
returned to people’s free choices. What would happen if government didn’t
educate our children? What would happen if Social Security didn’t force people
to “save” for retirement or Medicare and Medicaid didn’t provide health care?
What would happen if the Fed didn’t control the money supply and the FDIC
didn’t insure bank deposits? What would happen if the FDA didn’t ensure that
food was safe and the EPA didn’t protect us from pollution? What would happen
if the SEC didn’t rein in Wall Street and the FTC and antitrust laws didn’t
protect us from monopolies and collusion? These questions, and many more like
them, make up an almost unending list.
In the face of
such questions, it is nonetheless important to recognize that such questions
are rhetorical traps designed to put an unachievable burden of proof on
voluntary arrangements, short-circuiting the need to deal with the many valid
criticisms of coercive policies.
The trap works because answers to such questions are beyond our
competence. But that does not mean statism wins by default. It only
means that detailed prediction of what would happen in a future where
some government-imposed constraints on freedom are eased is beyond
anyone’s knowledge.....To Read More...
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